


damned spot

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Jason is sort of there, Mentions of joker - Freeform, Nightmares, Whumptober, almost forgot that tag whoops, emphasis on the hurt, not enough for a tag though I don't think, references to canon character death, references to injury, shaking hands, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: Bruce dreams of Jason dying. He wakes up and it’s not real. It’s not. So why won’t his hands stop shaking?





	damned spot

**Author's Note:**

> For whumptober day one: shaky hands. I wrote this in like twenty minutes so sorry if it makes no sense.

There is so much blood he can taste it. Ground into kevlar, dripping down green and yellow, matting soft curls together. Bruce pushes the curls back, combing them down over and over in a useless, soothing motion. It’s not doing anything for the boy in his arms and it’s not doing anything to stop the chasm cracking through Bruce’s heart.

“Jay,” he sobs, “no, no, Jaylad, no…”

The hand in Jason’s hair is shaking. The hand clutching his limp body to Bruce’s chest is shaking. They’d been shaking when he pressed them to his son’s neck to check his pulse as well, shaking when he tried the wrist, shaking so much that it must be why he couldn’t find a pulse. It must be. Jason can’t be dead. He can’t be. He can’t. 

There is laughter somewhere, or everywhere, it’s hard to tell and Bruce thinks he should try to follow the sound, but it’s not important. Nothing is important. How could anything ever be important when Jason is… when he’s… 

Hot tears mix with the blood in Jason’s hair. Bruce holds on tight enough to bruise, bent over the battered and broken body of his son. Kevlar caving in, cape torn, mask hanging on by a corner. Hanging on just like Jason must have, hoping and praying Bruce would get to him in time. 

But Bruce hadn’t. And now he feels like he’s dying alongside his son, hole in his chest to match the one in Jason’s… everywhere, god, there’s so much blood, coming from so many places. Bruce tries to wipe it off Jason’s face but his hands, shit, his hands are also covered in blood. Useless hands that are better suited to breaking than healing.

Hands that won’t. stop. shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he tries to say, “I’m sorry, Jay, I’m so sorry.”

The echoing laughter sharpens, focalises, and a bloody grin looms over them. “Lookie here,” Joker jeers. “Two bats for the price of one!”

Bruce should—he should do something. Hit him. Or—something. But he doesn’t care what Joker does to him, his soul has already been ripped out, gaping hole left in his chest, shaking hands losing their grip on the tattered insides that must be spilling out, that must be why it hurts so much, it must—

* * *

Bruce wakes with a start, chest heaving, and finds that he has bitten his cheek. The taste of blood in his mouth is too much, too real, and Bruce rolls out of bed, crashes to his knees in front of the en suite toilet and retches. He tries to breathe deeply but can only manage ragged gasps. The sweat sticking his shirt to his body feels thick and tacky like blood. He rips it off, throws it away, and is left staring down at his hands. 

Bruce lurches to his feet, running water in the sink and scrubbing until the phantom feeling of blood is gone. He stares at his haunted eyes in the mirror and remembers, suddenly, painfully, rehearsing lines from Macbeth with Jason. _ I want to be Lady Macbeth _ , Jay had insisted, _ she’s a badass lady and she did what nobody else could! _ Bruce screws his eyes shut. The damned spot may be out but his hands are still shaking. He clenches them into fists, head hanging over the sink.

“It’s not real,” he mutters. But it was real. Fuck. It was all real. “Jason’s alive. He came back, he’s not…”

The shaking doesn’t stop. It’s not just in his hands now, it’s his legs, his heart rabbiting in his chest. What if it has happened again? What if time caught up, the rug was pulled out from under this one happy ending the universe let Bruce have? What if Jason is dead?

What if he never came back to life at all?

Bruce shakes his head. No. _ No. _ He stumbles back to the bed, sinking down to sit on the mattress edge as he grabs his phone off the nightstand. The screen is tetchy about his trembling fingers and Bruce growls, stabbing at it with more force than need be until the number he wants comes up and rings through.

“_ Mm’lo? _”

The voice is rough, sleep-shod, but it’s Jason, it’s Jay, it can’t be anyone else and—and Bruce sobs again, but this time it’s an almost soundless sob of relief. 

“_ Hello? _ ” Jason repeats. Then, tentative, “ _ Bruce? S’at you? It’s the middle of the fricken night. _”

There’s something mumbled at the end that might be _ you big boob _. Bruce laughs, choking on the sound. He holds the phone tightly, hand steady, cherishing the sound of Jason’s grumbling voice as he curses about being woken up in the middle of the night. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com)


End file.
